‘Human beings are physical and they are spiritual. They bring their spiritual selves, however expressed, to their political discussions. This is not a threat to civil society.’
Photograph: Paul Miller/AAP

“How much does your faith influence your political decisions?” Journalists asked me this question a couple of a dozen times during my tenure as a parliamentarian. On each occasion I felt like rolling my eyes; by the end of my career, I probably started to do so visibly. Somewhere along the line I decided the best response to a silly question was an equally nonsensical answer: “37%,” I’d confidently reply and enjoy the poor journo’s confusion and momentary silence.

Religion isn’t silly, of course. Neither is politics, most of the time. Occasionally the two intersect. But on the majority of matters I dealt with in state politics – should we create an integrated public transport ticketing system? should we sell electricity assets? what’s the right formula for federal and state funding for health and hospitals? – my Catholic faith was of little help. I can’t say I ever consulted the New Testament in the middle of a cabinet meeting. Jesus said we should give to Caesar what belongs to Caesar, but the son of God didn’t have much to say about whether land tax should go up or payroll tax should come down.

Just as it is nonsensical to quantify the extent to which religious belief informs a political career, it is silly to claim that it never does. A person who engages in political activity is obviously shaped by their experiences, values and beliefs.

That certainly includes religion, but can I parse my world view and tell you how much derives from my faith, my female gender, my experience as an immigrant, my role as a mother, the professors who taught me at university, or my time as a factory worker? Of course not. Yes, I believe in Jesus Christ but I am also a disciple of Joseph Stiglitz. Why did no journalist ever ask how much my economic thinking influenced my political decisions?

To be fair to journalists, members of my church have shown form in attempting to manipulate political processes in order to promote certain economic, foreign and social-policy positions. Sixty years ago it was B.A. Santamaria, Archbishop Mannix and the Groupers trying to take over trade unions and Labor party branches, and just over six years ago it was Cardinal George Pell threatening to deny communion to Catholic MPs in New South Wales who voted for embryonic stem cell research.

Not that these attempts met with much success. Santamaria’s movement backfired, split the Labor party and gave federal government to the Liberal–Country party coalition for 23 years.

Pell utterly misread how MPs would react to his threats as Catholic parliamentarians – whether they opposed or supported embryonic stem cell research – took to the floor to echo the words of John F. Kennedy in 1960:

Whatever issue may come before me … I will make my decision in accordance with these views, in accordance with what my conscience tells me to be the national interest, and without regard to outside religious pressures or dictates. And no power or threat of punishment could cause me to decide otherwise.

He may not have led a saintly life, but for that statement alone Kennedy should be declared the patron saint of politicians of faith.

The faithful Catholic Scullin was a political failure, but the Catholic Keating, judged by Roy Williams in his book In God They Trust? as the most Christian of all our prime ministers, also ranks as one of our greatest ever leaders. In recent years it’s not even as if religious belief has served as any predictable guide in understanding where a politician will land on social positions: the atheist Gillard opposed same sex marriage, just like the Catholic Abbott, but the Christian Rudd and the Catholic Turnbull support marriage equality.

Still, fear of religious belief and institutional churches exercising influence over political and civil discourse remains, especially in the pages of certain newspapers. Appellations such as “Catholic Labor MP” or the “devout Catholic MP” fell easily into news reports during my career, sending a dog-whistle warning of suspicion and fear. She’s irrational, she’s led around by the pope, she’s different to the rest of us – that was the message.

Perhaps my focus on the media is unfair but in my experience the public’s reaction to a politician who professes a religious faith is not the same as the media’s view. Indifference, mild interest or positive welcomes were among the most common responses from voters to my religious belief. As a non-Christian voter once said to me, “It’s not that I want all politicians to share my views on religion. But it comforts me to know that they believe in something greater than our finite human existence.”

I understand that point. In fact I have often wondered about atheist politicians. Surely the logical conclusion to atheism is nihilism, in which case, why bother engaging in political activity, trying to improve the lives of your fellow citizens and make the world a better place? Which politician is scarier: the one who insists there is ontological meaning and transcendental purpose to our lives, or the one who denies objective truth and believes that existence is ultimately a useless void?

There are those who argue religious belief has no place in civic discourse. Yet from the earliest periods of recorded history we are presented with evidence that human beings possess a spiritual dimension. The people with the longest continuous cultural history on Earth, Aboriginal Australians, tell rich spiritual stories to explain creation and humanity’s relationship to it.

Human beings are physical and they are spiritual. They bring their spiritual selves, however expressed, to their political discussions. This is not a threat to civil society. For thousands of years the spiritual life of human beings has supported and encouraged the extension of human rights, the establishment of civic communities, promulgation of the public good and extraordinary acts of self-sacrifice for one’s fellow citizens.

Religious belief has had its dark civic moments too. The Inquisition was hardly a triumph for human generosity. Using the Bible to justify slavery wasn’t exactly in keeping with Paul’s statement that “There is no longer Jew or Gentile, slave or free, male and female. For you are all one in Christ Jesus.”

Twenty years ago it was fashionable in certain circles to contend that Australian Muslims were the new Australian Catholics. I recall a Muslim leader at an interfaith event making this point:

I say to my fellow Muslims, take heart. They’re not out to get you because you are Islamic. They are out to get you because you are different. Look at how this country treated Catholics a hundred years ago, fifty years ago. Those people had it far worse than we do.

He may as well have quoted JFK:

For while this year it may be a Catholic against whom the finger of suspicion is pointed, in other years it has been, and may someday be again, a Jew – or a Quaker or a Unitarian or a Baptist … Today I may be the victim, but tomorrow it may be you – until the whole fabric of our harmonious society is ripped at a time of great national peril.

I don’t know if I would agree today that the Micks had it far worse back then than the Muslims do now; I suspect that might be a historical comparison that is hard to make. What is true is that Australian Muslims, like Catholics before them, do face distrust, questions of divided loyalty, and fear that they may not be fully fledged members of “Team Australia”. That fear becomes palpably real as extreme adherents of Islam kill Australians holidaying in Indonesia or shoot workers in a Martin Place cafe.

Yet in the face of these violent events the Australian people have shown an ability to remain united with their fellow citizens – witness the #IllRideWithYou campaign started by ordinary folks, witness the Muslim parents and Islamic leaders reaching out to respond to the government’s invitation to help keep their kids and our community safe. The fabric of our harmonious, multicultural society is certainly stretched at times, but is it not torn in two.

No mainstream political party or figure argues that religion has no place in civic life. Richard Di Natale’s claims that the Greens will be a more centrist progressive party will not be realised as long as the party remains hostile to organised religion and people of faith. Spirituality and religious belief are central to how human beings make sense of and interpret their existence, and therefore they are central to how human society organises itself.

No sensible solution to some of the most vexed societal questions – whether on national security or marriage equality – can be derived and resolved without understanding and respecting the religious dimensions of human actions. Perhaps this is why I rolled my eyes so often. Asking a politician about their faith is the wrong question. Rather we should ask, “How well do you know the faith of your fellow citizens?”

This is an essay from the forthcoming democracy edition of Meanjin, Vol 74, No 3, Spring 2015, published 15 September.